Hotel Leader Calls for National Tourism Crisis Strategy After February Violence

Tulum, Quintana Roo — A leading hotel industry figure is calling for a national strategy to manage tourism promotion and crises, citing the limited but disruptive impact of nationwide violence in late February.

David Ortiz Mena, president of the Mexican Caribbean Hotel Council and the Tulum Hotel Association, said that while incidents on February 23 had minimal direct effect on Quintana Roo’s Caribbean coast, they still triggered some cancellations and highlighted a critical gap in coordinated messaging.

“This experience seems like a clear example of how we lack a national umbrella to articulate promotion and crisis management efforts,” Ortiz Mena said in an interview. He emphasized that the region saw no tourist injuries or federal highway blockages, and operations returned to normal the next day—which is why a U.S. Embassy alert included Quintana Roo only briefly.

“It’s true there was a situation of uncertainty that generated some cancellations; we shouldn’t minimize or exaggerate this, but focus on the current tourist flow,” he commented. “A national framework would allow sending positive, realistic messages about what’s happening in the country, minimizing the impact on an economic activity that around five million Mexicans depend on.”

Data from the Labor and Social Welfare Secretariat indicates nearly one in ten formal workers in Mexico is linked to tourism.

Ortiz Mena pointed to an isolated social media campaign by an agency after the violence as evidence of the void. That effort, which began with images related to the violent events, lacked follow-through and failed to provide clear reassurance to travelers.

“Crisis management isn’t about some official coming out to say everything is fine,” he explained. “It’s about having a structure that allows disseminating a strategy of positive promotion and containment; being able to share images showing destinations with their attractions, operating normally.”

The Mexican government previously created the Non-Resident Fee specifically to fund such promotion. The fee is still collected—and was even raised 15% to nearly 1,000 pesos—but is now used for other purposes that don’t generate more tourism, Ortiz Mena noted.

“Promotion isn’t an expense, it’s an investment that pays off in greater tourist flow and employment,” he said.

While state-level promotion efforts are significant, Ortiz Mena concluded that the need for real federal support is increasingly evident.